Figure 14-1.A video playing in QuickTime Player
NOTE If you generally just want to view content, then you will likely not need to upgrade to QuickTime Pro. However, if you plan on doing any video conversion or editing, you’ll find that QuickTime is a good way to handle certain tasks, so you may want to consider it.
iTunes
iTunes (Figure 14-2) is one of Apple’s most successful software products ever. Originally designed as a simple music library and playback application, it has since moved beyond just music, and now includes the iTunes Store and the ability to handle not only Internet streaming radio, but also video. Beyond that it is the primary interface used to sync up your iPod and iPhone with your music, video, and contact and calendar data.
While iTunes is feature rich, it’s still easy to use. The iTunes toolbar provides the basic con- trols to start, stop, and control the media playback, while the main window area is designed to select and manage your media.
The main window provides a column along the left side to select your media libraries (sorted by type) and your playlists, along with a selection to take you to the iTunes Store. The main window area to the right is where you can view your media in a number of different ways.
TIP One particular way to find a song, album, or artist quickly is to use the browser accessible from the menu bar by selecting View ➤ (Show|Hide) Browser (Cmd+B). When used, the browser will appear at the top of the main window (Figure 14-3) in all views except the Cover Flow view.
Figure 14-2.iTunes using the Cover Flow view
Figure 14-3.Viewing your iTunes library by album with the browser visible
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Importing Media into iTunes
In order to take advantage of iTunes, you must first import your media into it. The way this is done depends on what sort of media you are starting with. If you already have a collection of supported digital media files (including MP3, AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), and MOV), then you can just use the File ➤Import... command from the menu bar.
NOTE The Advanced tab in iTunes preferences contains a number of options that are relevant to importing media. For example, under the Advanced ➤General tab, you may want to select
“Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” and “Keep iTunes Music folders organized,” which will keep all of your iTunes media organized in its own location without affecting any of the original files you import.
If you are importing your music from a CD collection, iTunes will automatically convert your audio CDs into MP3, AAC, or other formats, and import them into your library. The options available to you are located on the Advanced ➤Importing tab in iTunes preferences.
NOTE Which settings are best for importing your CDs is mostly a personal choice. If you are a true audiophile with lots of hard drive space, then of course Apple Lossless format is your best choice (it makes an exact copy of the audio with no loss in quality whatsoever, yet still occupies only half the space as a CD audio file). For everyone else, it becomes a space, quality, and compatibility issue. AAC and MP3 are both compatible with most digital media players; how- ever, MP3 would still be the default if maximum compatibility is an issue. Many people feel that AAC provides better playback quality at the same compression over MP3 (and at higher compression I tend to agree). I find that 256 Kbps AAC provides excellent audio files while sav- ing considerable disk space over uncompressed (or lossless) formats, while 128 Kbps AAC provides good enough sound quality for most situations and allows you to cram lots of music on your iPod. For MP3s, I find 192 Kbps files to be good enough, but I find 128 Kbps MP3s to have quite noticeable audio issues.
Once you have your import preferences set up, when you insert an audio CD into your com- puter, it will show up in your iTunes library, and (at least the first time) a pop-up window will appear asking you if you’d like to import the CD into your iTunes library. If you send away the pop-up window (either momentarily or permanently), you can still import your CD by clicking the Import CD button in the lower-right-hand corner of iTunes.
NOTE When you insert your CD, if you are connected to the Internet, iTunes will seek out information about the CD you inserted and automatically fill in the CD and track details (unless you turned this feature off on the Advanced ➤Importing tab of iTunes preferences). If for some reason the details are wrong, or you’d like to change them, then select the track (or tracks) you wish to alter and select Get Info from the contextual menu. The Get Info box will not only reveal more information about the tracks and album, but will allow you to freely edit the information.
The other way to get music into your iTunes library is to buy it from the iTunes Store (Fig- ure 14-4) (formerly know as the iTunes Music Store, but then they started selling videos, too).
The iTunes Store, which now ranks as one of the leading music retailers in the world, pro- vides a huge selection of music new and old, along with an ever-increasing selection of movies, TV shows, music videos, and audio books. Most of this is for sale, although there are occasion- ally freebies available for download.
Figure 14-4.The iTunes Store in iTunes
To buy music from the iTunes Store, you must first sign in with your Apple ID (if you have a .Mac account, that info is also your Apple ID unless you’ve previously registered using some other information).
iTunes Store files, DRM, and iTunes Plus
Traditionally, all the files you purchased from the iTunes Store were “protected” using a method of Digital Rights Management (DRM) called FairPlay. As far as DRM goes, FairPlay is fairly lenient, allowing any pur- chased files to be transferred and played on five different computers (the same five for all purchases, and each computer must be authorized). It also allows a playlist with that song to be burned to seven audio CDs, allowing unlimited syncs to iPods and iPhones, and the ability to stream the items to Apple Airport Express and Apple TV.
Still, traditionally, all the items you could buy were protected by DRM, which disturbs some people who feel insecure about the fact that Apple controls how their items are used. (Some are disturbed for valid if not paranoid reasons, some for nefarious reasons, and some for seemingly purely politically ideal- ist reasons.)
Recently, Apple has reached agreements with some publishers to distribute some items not only free of DRM, but also of a higher quality than traditional iTunes music files. These files are called iTunes Plus files, and are common 256 Kbps AAC files. They tend to cost a bit more than the traditional DRM- protected files, but if DRM bothers you, it’s the way to go (I think it’s worthwhile for the added sound quality).
By the way, the iTunes Plus files do contain embedded information about who purchased the file, which should not bother anyone who wishes to use the files legitimately, but could be used to help iden- tify people who are taking their purchases straight to Pirate Bay or some other file-sharing system.
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NOTE While you can easily export your own iMovies and other QuickTime movies so that they will appear in iTunes (and sync with your iPod/iPhone), Apple doesn’t provide a way to import DVDs into iTunes. This could be because Apple sells movies on the iTunes Store, but it’s unlikely. More likely is that importing movies from DVDs is somewhat legally ambiguous. From a technical standpoint, it’s perfectly legal to make a copy of a movie you own—however, to make a copy of a DVD, you must unencode the content, which may run afoul of the Digital Mil- lennium Copyright Act (DMCA—a sloppy little law passed by government officials who either were getting big money from the MPAA, or more likely just weren’t paying attention). Most right-minded people would agree that it’s fine, but the movie industry and some others tend to disagree. Either way, if you wish to do this, it’s usually a two-step process: ripping the DVD (or converting it for use from your hard drive), and then converting the video. I tend to find that using HandBrake (http://handbrake.m0k.org/) to convert a DVD to M4V format ready for my iPhone works just fine.
Sharing and Streaming iTunes Media
iTunes allows you to share your iTunes library with anyone else on your network. You can enable this from the Sharing tab in iTunes preferences. This will allow your library to show in the iTunes libraries of any other people on your network. Likewise, you can view and play songs from other users on your network who are sharing their libraries.
NOTE DRM-protected iTunes Store files can’t be shared unless the receiving computer is one of the five computers authorized to play back your iTunes DRMed files. In fact, if you attempt to play one from an unauthorized computer, the music will stop.
Besides sharing your files, you can also stream your files. Music files can be streamed to Air- Port and AirPort Expresses equipped with speakers, as well as Apple TV systems. Video can be streamed to Apple TV systems. To stream your files, select the output source from the drop- down menu in the lower-right-hand corner of iTunes.
To fully take advantage of Apple TV with iTunes, you must also set up Apple TV in the Apple TV iTunes preferences.
Syncing iPods and iPhones
When you connect an iPod or iPhone to your computer, the device will show up as a device in your iTunes library. Selecting the device will allow you to configure the settings, which will range from simple for an iPod shuffle (Figure 14-5), to more complex for an iPhone (Figure 14-6).
After you set your settings, click the Apply button to resync your device with the new settings.
Figure 14-5.Device settings allow you to update and apply settings to iPods and iPhones. For an iPod Shuffle, there aren’t too many options.
Figure 14-6.Due to its enhanced capabilities, iTunes displays quite a few more options when an iPhone is connected to it vs. an iPod Shuffle.
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Preview
Preview (Figure 14-7) is to PDF and image files as QuickTime Player is to video. It provides an excellent alternative to Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for viewing PDF files, complete with support for performing text searches, copying and pasting text from a PDF, viewing encrypted PDFs, creat- ing bookmarks, page previews, and annotation capabilities. Beyond that, it’s a multiformat image viewer allowing you to quickly open a wide range of image formats.
Figure 14-7.A PDF document open in Preview
Besides viewing images, Preview also has the ability to do some minor image editing, includ- ing image color adjustments, cropping, resizing, and saving in an array of image file formats.
Photo Booth
Photo Booth is a fairly silly yet highly entertaining application that takes advantage of the iSight camera that is attached to most new Macs (except Mac Pros and Mac minis). When you launch Photo Booth, it will automatically fire up the camera built into your computer and allow you to capture photos or videos.
Once Photo Booth is launched, you can switch between a single picture, four quick pictures (just like a real photo booth!), and a video mode using the button on the left below the preview area. You can also apply effects to the images or video by clicking the Effects button and scroll- ing through the effect previews. All the images and videos shot with Photo Booth will scroll across the bottom. Selecting an existing image will open it up in the preview area (Figure 14-8), allowing you to send the image to someone through Mail, add the image to iPhoto, or use the image as your iChat or Account icon.
Figure 14-8.A four-picture image previewed in Photo Booth
Other Default Leopard Applications
Leopard comes with a number of other applications for various purposes that aren’t covered elsewhere in this book. These applications are described in Table 14-1.
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Table 14-1.Other Applications Installed with Leopard Application Description
Calculator This application provides not only a simple calculator mode, but also advanced scientific and programming modes. It also provides conversions to and from many systems of measurement.
Chess This application provides a 3D chess set that puts you against the computer. It also supports voice recognition, which makes it interesting to play around with.
Dictionary This is a handy application that provides dictionary, thesaurus, and Wikipedia references for a word or term either individually or together.
DVD Player With a new, slick interface for Leopard, this application provides a great experience for watching DVDs on your Mac.
Front Row Coupled with an Apple remote, this application provides a nice interface for controlling and viewing media on your computer from across the room.
Stickies This application allows you to create sticky notes that will appear on your desktop.
TextEdit This is a simple text editor with some basic word processing features.
Summary
Besides these basic applications, which range from indispensable to at least sort of interesting, Apple provides a number of other common applications, which we’ll talk about in a bit. But first, we’ll talk a bit about .Mac.
.Mac (pronounced “dot Mac”) is an online service provided by Apple that not only provides basic features such as e-mail, file sharing, and web site hosting but also provides a link between many OS X applications and computers. At the cost of $99 a year, you have to ask yourself, is this worth it?
That’s a question you’ll have to answer yourself, but first you need to understand more about what .Mac offers. After all, if all you want is an e-mail address (which .Mac offers quite nicely), Google, Yahoo, and others will give you one for free; however, if you are looking for a complete integrated service that provides added utility to your system and applications, then .Mac may be just what you need.
In this chapter, we’ll outline how to set up .Mac and then outline just a few of the features of .Mac, including the following:
• Web hosting
• iDisk
• System syncing
• The Back to My Mac feature
• Application integration
Setting up .Mac
To set up a .Mac account, go to www.mac.com, and select either the Free Trial or Join Now option from the .Mac home page. This will take you to the sign-up page where you will be asked to enter some personal information and select your .Mac username and password. Although you can change your password at any time in the future, you are stuck with your username forever, so choose carefully. At this point, if you are joining .Mac, you will be prompted for billing infor- mation; otherwise, if you are just getting a trial account, you are all set.
One of the first things you’ll want to do once you have set up a .Mac account is to enter your .Mac username in the Accounts panel of System Preferences. This will allow you to take advantage of all the features of .Mac from your computer.
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.Mac
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